Big news out of the House Armed Services Committee: Representative Mac Thornberry (a graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, I proudly note) is going to introduce a bill enhancing oversight of kill/capture operations that may be conducted … Read more »
While we are on the subject of Mark Mazzetti’s The Way of the Knife, and for that matter while we are speaking of Mali, check out this Washington Post report on U.S. boots being on the ground in … Read more »
Jens David Ohlin (Cornell) has an interesting post up at LieberCode in which he discusses a range of LOAC issues raised by CIA involvement in drone strikes. Jens raises the question whether CIA personnel involved in drone strikes can qualify … Read more »
As Jack mentioned, Dan Klaidman of the Daily Beast reported today that “the White House is poised to sign off on a plan to shift the CIA’s lethal targeting program to the Defense Department.”
Over at ForeignPolicy.com, I just … Read more »
Pretty big decision by the D.C. Circuit this morning, reversing the district court’s dismissal of the ACLU’s drone-related FOIA suit against the CIA on the ground that the Agency’s “Glomar response” was not justified. (Jack previewed and … Read more »
I have posted previously about a criminal investigation in Poland targeting the former head of Poland’s intelligence service, based on his alleged cooperation in establishing a CIA black site on Polish territory. It appears now that charges will be dropped… Read more »
The recent controversy about the Justice Department White Paper and the closely related Senate confirmation hearings for CIA director-nominee John Brennan have raised the profile of congressional intelligence oversight. A brief summary of some of these issues is this Politico … Read more »
In the President’s State of the Union Address, President Obama spent a fair amount of time on foreign policy and Lawfare-related matters. In addition to announcing his cybersecurity executive order, he discussed draw-down plans for Afghanistan, how to deal … Read more »
There’s been a fair amount of buzz over the past few days centered around the idea of a statutory “drone court”–a tribunal modeled after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that would (presumably) provide at least some modicum of due … Read more »
Speaking of the John Brennan confirmation hearing, here’s the video, courtesy of CSPAN:
Back in October, I wrote about the claim in this Washington Post story that John Brennan supports shifting the CIA’s operations involving the use of lethal force over to the military. Now that he is about to be nominated as … Read more »
In the category of shameless self-promotion, I am quite pleased to announce the publication of National Security Law in the News: A Guide for Journalists, Scholars, and Policymakers. The book is a joint publication of the ABA Standing Committee on … Read more »
One important consequence of President Obama’s re-election will be the further entrenchment, and legitimation, of the basic counterterrorism policies that Obama continued, with tweaks, from the late Bush administration. We will have four more years of a Democratic president presiding … Read more »
I agree with Bobby’s analysis of this morning’s Washington Post profile by Karen DeYoung of John Brennan, and would add these thoughts:
Eliminating CIA’s Drone Capacities. Count me as skeptical that we will see drone targeting capacities moved out of … Read more »
[Note: I'd originally indicated that Greg Miller wrote this second piece in the Post series, but in fact it was Karen de Young -- my apologies to Karen! For the sake of completeness, the first piece was by Greg and … Read more »
I’ve recently completed a short (10-page) draft meant to serve as a primer on key domestic law questions associated with computer network operations. The paper will be published as part of the proceedings of this past summer’s Naval War College … Read more »
I saw the movie Argo last weekend. It’s an excellent film, and as readers likely know already, its subject is a real covert action. After seeing it, I became curious about how accurate a portrayal of the events in question … Read more »
Ellen Nakashima has an interesting piece in the Post describing Iranian computer network operations directed at U.S. banks and other private commercial entities, depicting them as the latest developments in the ongoing shadow conflict. The timing of the story is … Read more »
I’m happy to report that I’ve recently completed drafting an article that has been much on my mind for the past few years. Beyond the Battlefield, Beyond al Qaeda: The Destabilizing Legal Architecture of Counterterrorism (Michigan Law Review, forthcoming 2013) … Read more »
This is a wonderful piece of journalism. The Washington Post‘s Ian Shapira today has a long feature on one of the CIA officers convicted in Italian courts for the kidnapping and rendition of radical Egyptian cleric Abu Omar—and … Read more »
There has been speculation about the effect of the Obama administration’s pinched detention policy – i.e. no new detainees brought to GTMO, and no new detainees to Parwan (Afghanistan) from outside Afghanistan – on its other counterterrorism policies. I have … Read more »
Those following the Stuxnet/Flame story will be interested in this piece that just went up on the Washington Post website. In a sequel to David Sanger’s account attributing Stuxnet to an American-Israeli collaboration, today’s piece by Ellen Nakashima, Greg Miller, … Read more »
Craig Whitlock has a very interesting piece in the Washington Post today, the main thrust of which is to describe the military’s efforts to establish aerial surveillance capacity across wide swaths of Africa, in support of both counterterrorism and foreign … Read more »
By now almost everyone has read David Sanger’s fascinating New York Times story relating the behind-the-scenes story of the development and deployment of the Stuxnet virus as part of a larger classified program known as “Olympic Game.” Others, including my … Read more »
In all the last two days’ coverage of the Obama administration’s targeting program — including this lengthy NYT piece, Dan Klaidman’s book excerpt, and today’s NYT editorial — there’s a remarkable lack of discussion of Congress. (As far … Read more »
A number of sources are reporting the discovery of a complex malware toolkit, mostly described as “Flame,” which appears to have been distributed in a targeted fashion to infect computers in Iran in particular, though also throughout the Middle East. … Read more »
A senior government lawyer writes in with the following thought on the Pakistani sentencing of Dr. Shakil Afridi, the doctor who helped the CIA locate Osama Bin Laden:
it’s possible that others may have made this point (which seems obvious
[UPDATE: If one looks at the draft NDAA provisions approved by the HASC Emerging Threats Subcomittee (Chairman Mac Thornberry, Hook ‘Em), there is at section 942 a provision calling for quarterly reporting to SASC and HASC of DOD’s significant cyberspace … Read more »
Yesterday I posted a lengthy response to Gabor Rona’s critique of the Brennan speech, and Gabor has now replied to my comments. Alas, we seem to be speaking past one another in various ways (for example, I critiqued what I … Read more »
Over at Opinio Juris, Gabor Rona of Human Rights First offers an extended critique of John Brennan’s speech on the use of lethal force. It is an interesting and provocative post, leading me to share a few thoughts in response.… Read more »
Very glad to have joined the Lawfare team. I look forward to more sustained blogging once the spring grading season is over. For now, I’ll offer just a quick thought on the speech John Brennan delivered yesterday, and on the … Read more »
John Brennan’s speech yesterday was important for at least three reasons: (1) it marked the first official White House acknowledgment that “the United States Government conducts targeted strikes against specific al-Qa’ida terrorists, sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft, often referred to … Read more »
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY
April 30, 2012
Remarks of John O. Brennan – As Prepared for Delivery
Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism
Woodrow Wilson International Center for … Read more »
Last October, I wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled “Will Drone Strikes Become Obama’s Guantanamo?” in which I said that “the administration needs to work harder to explain and defend its use of drones as lawful … Read more »
How should we understand CIA General Counsel Stephen Preston’s speech at Harvard Law School the other day? It is not, like earlier speeches by senior administration lawyers and counterterrorism officials, an effort to spell out the legal framework in which … Read more »
My old colleague Daniel Klaidman from days of yore at Legal Times writes in with a guest post on CIA General Counsel Stephen Preston’s speech at Harvard Law School. Klaidman, now of Newsweek and the Daily Beast is the … Read more »
Yesterday’s speech by CIA General Counsel Stephen Preston has generated criticism from Deborah Pearlstein, on Opinio Juris. I want to address a couple of the points she raises.
Deborah first addresses Preston’s comments relating to the domestic law authority of … Read more »
CIA General Counsel Stephen is giving the following remarks today at Harvard Law School:
Remarks of
The Honorable Stephen W. Preston
General Counsel
Central Intelligence AgencyHarvard Law School
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Tuesday, April 10, 2012“CIA and the Rule of
Congratulations to the Harvard National Security Journal for a fruitful conference yesterday on the covert action and the law. It was an intensive seminar all day long on the domestic and international law issues surrounding all things covert, and special … Read more »
Ritika and I have received many thoughtful responses to our post the other day about the War of 1812, James Madison, executive power, and civil liberties. The most eye-opening–to me, at least–was a note from Stephen F. Knott, a … Read more »
Will Polish judges have the occasion to weigh in on the legality of non-criminal detention of asserted al Qaeda members? Probably so. It appears that Polish prosecutors have brought charges against the former head of Poland’s intelligence service, Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, … Read more »
On today’s episode of the podcast, Bobby discusses his encyclopedic new Title 10/Title 50 article with Jack. The article, “Military-Intelligence Convergence and the Law of the Title 10/Title 50 Debate,” has just been published in the Journal of … Read more »
Daniel Klaidman at Newsweek, whose forthcoming book on the Obama Administration’s counterterrorism policies promises to be must-read material, reports that the decision has been made to go public with some form of defense of the legality of the al-Awlaki strike. … Read more »
Back in May, I noted that the House version of the NDAA contained a very interesting section addressing “military activities” in cyberspace. Section 962 of that bill would have “affirmed” that DOD may conduct military activities in cyberspace (including clandestine … Read more »
Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post, whose reporting on cybersecurity issues (including counterespionage and offensive computer network operations) is indispensible, had an extraordinary piece yesterday concerning an episode that occurred in 2008, and the impact it had on the process … Read more »
In response to some push back, and at the risk of some repetition, I would like to clarify a bit more why I think there is no serious bar to the government revealing more about the legal basis for its … Read more »
Yesterday, the New York Times reported that Samir Khan, a 25-year old U.S. citizen from North Carolina, was killed in the same drone strike that targeted Anwar al-Aulaqi. According to Foreign Policy, Khan “helped create the media architecture of … Read more »
The afternoon session of Day 2 of the conference begins with introductory remarks from Gabby Blum, the moderator of the afternoon’s first panel. She asks the panel to discuss the utility of force; what are the costs of engaging in … Read more »
I join Ben in welcoming Marty Lederman back to blogging. His initial post–parsing both international and domestic legal issues relating to the UBL operation–is typically thorough and insightful (not to mention generally correct). Because it is a long post, … Read more »
Josh Rogin has an intriguing post up over at the Cable, detailing an interview with HPSCI Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) concerning the ongoing debate regarding whether to arm the Libyan rebels. There is much worth comment here, but I’ll confine … Read more »
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
In one of the strangest stories I’ve come across in a long time—and there have been many—news reports say an FBI agent shot and killed an Orlando man with ties to deceased Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Ibragim Todashev was not suspected of playing a role in the bombings, but, during questioning, confessed nevertheless to playing a role in a triple homicide in the Boston area. After his confession, Todashev allegedly… Read more »
